


Numerology

by orangeflavor



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance, Tension, vignette style
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-07-22 11:26:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7435727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orangeflavor/pseuds/orangeflavor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He halts her with his hand on her wrist, fingers curling around her pulse point. Everything but her heart stops." - Keiji and Kasumi. Their love by numbers, vignette-style.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Numerology

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DustieRhoades](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DustieRhoades/gifts).



> Done as a gift fic for the lovely DustieRhoades, who has been such an encouraging reader and friend lately. I know it took me a hot minute to crank this out but I can finally say that I'm satisfied with it. :) And I only hope that you are too, hon. Please enjoy!

Numerology

" _He halts her with his hand on her wrist, fingers curling around her pulse point. Everything but her heart stops."_ \- Keiji and Kasumi. Their love by numbers, vignette-style.

* * *

Their language has always been that of numbers. Figures of value and meaning and clarity that become the first bricks of their foundation. Whether through credits or code or time-tables, they have always known the precision and sureness of numbers.

They have always been ready for the quantifiable.

They were never ready for each other.

_* * *_

_Source code=alt87command sent program run time=445979.53_

_Rootkit in progress designated drop 6264007 logging data_

_Retrieval in progress_

_Processing…_

_Processing…_

_& 847622995_

_Running…_

_Access Granted_

_Program run time=90811745.65_

* * *

Kasumi remembers first meeting Keiji Okuda. His form is doused in shadow across the room, a flicker of movement that barely catches her eye.

The painting is halfway between the two of them, and he hasn't seen her yet.

Her sharp-toothed smile flashes briefly beneath her cloak.

Seven seconds left on her shunt program. The lasers are cut. Motion-sensors deactivated. Remote access to the alarm system is transferred to her omni-tool.

He is three feet closer to the target, eight feet from the east exit, twelve feet from her.

Her window is only twenty-five seconds.

He moves.

She follows.

In the end, neither comes away from the job empty-handed.

* * *

"The building's layout," Keiji explains, tapping the necessary keys along his omni-tool and watching as the holographic interface springs up along the wall of their darkened room.

Kasumi runs a slim finger along her bottom lip and narrows her eyes at the projection. "I see five points of entry."

"Only three are feasible for what we need."

"And the guard detail?"

He glances at her, a shadow falling over his face in the half-light. "On a six-hour rotation. Double guards at the north and west entryways, always in pairs. There's a max seventeen second window in the patrol here." He points to the corresponding hallway along the projection.

Kasumi grins, her hand falling from her mouth. "That's all I'll need."

Keiji smirks at her sideways.

She catches the look. Her throat tightens, her own responding smirk almost lost beneath the shadow of her hood.

They continue working into the night.

Six days later the target is theirs.

* * *

"How much, you wager?" Keiji asks, rubbing at his chin as he appraises the artifact in the protective glass before them.

Kasumi purses her lips and hums her consideration, hands planting on her hips as she bends down to eye the artifact more closely. Ancient asari writing is carved into the fragile lip of the urn, the red and brown paints almost completely sanded off with wear. She narrows her eyes in critique. "I'm going to go with 14.2."

Keiji snorts beside her, crossing his arms.

She straightens as she eyes him with a raised brow. "You disagree."

"It's easily 18." He shakes his head, pointing at the base of the urn where a dark tint blossoms upward about two inches. "You see that?"

Kasumi only keeps her raised brow in his direction.

His sigh of exasperation is tinged with amusement. "That's ve'saru, a type of stiffening paste the asari used in the bases of their pottery and clay fixtures back in the Lenlanis period. Which means this urn is _at least_ six thousand years old."

Kasumi blows an appreciative whistle from her lips and grins at the piece. "Well then, looks like our employer's fixed rate just became a little _unfixed_."

"I'm thinking a percentage might be more appropriate." His lips quirk up triumphantly in a lop-sided smirk.

She punches him playful in the arm. "And I'm thinking you're not a half-bad partner."

He levels her with a withering look she is too busy giggling to catch.

_* * *_

_Account number 5753928_

_Send specified credits? Y_

_Approve split transfer? Y_

_Routing number 764811309_

_88724559346 &_773685434_gn&kh997_

_Transaction complete_

_Keystroke count700965 &44_

_Downloading…_

_Available funds: 489,087,956_

* * *

"That's cheating."

Kasumi raises a brow his way. "We're thieves. There's no such thing as cheating in our line of work."

He leans forward across the table so that his face is suddenly close to hers. "I already called it," he breathes lowly, a sharp glint to his eye that makes her neck heat up.

But she giggles around the food in her mouth and then swallows, cocking a challenging look his way. "I don't do dibs, Keiji. You should know this by now. You've got to be quick to play with me."

He glances down at the empty plate between them where she had swiped the last piece of pork and stuffed it unceremoniously into her mouth. A suspicious smile slits across his face.

She narrows her eyes at him.

"Not to worry," he sighs, leaning back in his chair, and silently, Kasumi feels her too-soon relief beating around her chest. "I'll remember this," he promises with a sharp smile.

She blinks at him, chopsticks held limply in her hand, and something suspiciously like exhilaration begins to pool in her gut.

* * *

Kasumi loves practice runs. Not for the reassurance of her ability, or the adrenaline that suffuses her system, or even the thrilling sense of accomplishment when she beats her own record time. Her true joy comes from the spare seconds before her run commences.

"How about you try not to crash my system this time, hmm? I don't want to have to do another overhaul in the near future," Keiji says, eyes on his omni-tool as numbers flash along his screen.

Kasumi grabs at her ankles as she sits cross-legged on the nearby table and grins boldly. "Maybe make a better sim next time," she says cockily.

He raises a brow in her direction.

She snickers beneath her hood.

"You'll have three minutes and twenty seconds," Keiji begins, finger poised over the stopwatch timer on his omni-tool. "Three doors time-locked on a forty-bit rotation. Embedded encryption and a triaxilating algorithm on the locking mechanism." He flashes her a smug grin. "Ready?"

Dropping down from the table, she brushes imaginary lint from her shoulder and throws him a half-hearted salute. "As ready as you are for another humiliating loss." Her eyebrow arches in a challenge.

His chuckle of indifference is oddly unsettling. "On three?"

She rolls her shoulders, brushing off the wariness at his ease and confidence. "One," she starts, feet braced, eyes forward.

"Two," he counts.

She's off before he can curse her impatience.

"Three!" she calls back, laughing.

* * *

Kasumi catches the quick rustle of color before it is gone. A light flutter of wings and then a clear, sun-beat sky. She holds her hand to her eyes to shield her gaze. It has been many years since she's visited Earth, and the hard-packed soil beneath her boots tells her that home is still where she left it.

She watches the bird flit away into the distance and sighs in remembrance. She shifts her hood back and lets it fall along her shoulders so the sun can warm her face and the wind can rustle her short, dark hair. Her eyes slide closed as she breathes deep.

Keiji watches her silently.

Lips quirking in a secret smile, Kasumi turns to him, eyes half-lidded. "Time to sow the wheat," she says.

His brows furrow in response.

Her smile lilts slightly. "My grandmother," she says in explanation, as though that answers anything. Swallowing tightly, she continues. "I remember my grandmother. And how she used to say it was time to sow the wheat when the _mugimaki_ visited the fields."

Keiji looks to the sky. "The bird?"

Kasumi nods. "I was twelve and stupid and I never wanted to see another of those damn birds again. Not after she died." Fifteen years seems so long suddenly. And so empty.

They stand silently together for many moments and then suddenly, Keiji's hand is brushing a short lock of hair from her cheek and she is blinking in tight-lipped trepidation at him. His fingers trail past her cheek and linger at the edge of her ear. She pulls her hood back up, hands curling shakily into the material, her chest tight.

His hand falls to his side and his lips tilt up in a smirk that hurts more than it helps. And then he is reaching for her hand and tugging her along. "Come on, Little Bird."

Her eyes lock to the space between his shoulder blades as he leads her away, the tears unseen along her lids, her shaky breath spent already.

Her hand curls instinctively around his and the sky is still clear, still sun-beat above her.

_* * *_

_Time command 76:9842_

_Deactivation sequence set authorization 4alpha9127_

_Time lock activated auto-sequencer in progresssubset665049_

_Loading…_

_Payload delivered 152.83_

_Encryption set to rotating frequency on adjoining band 84275_

_access control achievedstart logging function_

_Retrieval set for 713004.35_

* * *

There are four inches of air and the hesitant breath of anticipation between them. The ventilation shaft is two by three and she can feel the pressure of his knee in her thigh and the steadying brace of his arm just above her back, hand planted along the shaft wall beside her. They still and breathe and wait.

Two guards pass by below them. A slant of shadow lights along Keiji's face, so close to hers, and if she looks hard enough she can see the slight layer of stubble already dotting his chin. She has an inexplicable urge to reach out her hand and brush her thumb along the roughness, just to know what it feels like, but the sound of approaching footsteps and the tight flex of his jaw in the half-light tells her to remain still.

Forty seconds pass before their window approaches and – more sure and steady than she thought she'd be capable of in this moment – she flips open her omni-tool and deactivates the motion sensors below, just as Keiji knocks out the panel beneath them and slides out of the shaft, seamlessly, and without a word.

His hand is there to anchor her own descent and she finds herself holding it a half second too long.

But he says nothing.

And she says even less.

And in the course of eight minutes, as Keiji breaks through the passcode locks and Kasumi infiltrates the second level of encryption, the safe door to their target swinging wide and welcoming before them, she wonders if this is what it means to fall.

Deeply, and irretrievably.

* * *

"Sending the command code now." Keiji's voice filters over the comm., cool and crisp like the sliver of grey morning on an autumn day.

Kasumi hides her smile beneath her hood, a pointless exercise while her cloak is active and yet, it settles the tight bundle of nerves in her stomach that has nothing to do with the current heist. Across the vast mansion, Keiji is crouched at the small communications power hub affixed to the side of the house. Within the halls, Kasumi waits patiently. She catches the red light on the corner camera as it blinks out into blackness, and slips through the next door silently. "I'm in," she whispers back.

His grunt of acknowledgement answers her.

She slinks through the mansion easily enough.

"Maybe this time," he begins, and she can hear his smile even in the dark, "you might try isolating the lock-key without _completely_ frying my uplink."

The soft light of the safe's security panel breaks against her darkened face as her fingers tap the necessary keys. "Backlogging the worm takes too long." She flashes a smile that no one sees. "My way is quicker."

"It's also less refined, Little Bird," he snorts.

Kasumi inwardly warms at the familiar nickname and sets her omni-tool's timer for one minute and twenty seconds, switching to a charged electrical burst, the energy crackling along her lighted wrist. "But way more fun, partner." Her fist connects with the panel and the spark shorts out the connection, the dim light of the panel flickering and then blacking out entirely. She hears the responding _click_ of the locking mechanism coming unlatched. Her grin is wide and fierce.

Keiji sighs over the line. "I guess it's a good thing you only have seventy seconds left to completely wreck the system then."

Kasumi's fingers curl in anticipation as she slips inside, her grin as familiar as the darkness that cloaks her. "Oh is that all?"

His low chuckle over the line is only two decibels louder than her suddenly hammering heartbeat.

* * *

She finds him staring at the painting from their first job. His hand covers his mouth, his eyes focused, and the room is slanted in shadow from the nearby desk lamp's cut of low light. She steps up beside him, hand naturally moving to his shoulder in a light tap. "Hey," she says, voice inexplicably low.

She doesn't know why but she almost feels like she's intruding, and so she steps softly.

Keiji glances at her momentarily, offering a smile in greeting, and then returning to his musing on the painting. "Hey," he answers.

Her hand slides from his shoulder, her fingers tingling from the touch. She flexes them and clears her throat. "Slight case of nostalgia or something?" she asks, chuckling, finding her voice tight in her throat. She shakes her head.

His eyes are still on the painting. "Something like that," he whispers, fingers tapping along his lips.

"Hmm." Kasumi rocks back on her heels, winding her hands behind her back and holding them there.

"How long has it been?" he asks suddenly.

She dips her head toward him in question.

"This…partnership." His hesitant pause lights something in her gut she has no name for. "How long have we been together?"

Her lips part but only air passes through. A little of her courage even. But no words.

He looks at her then, and she is suddenly aware of how close they are standing. His eyes trail her hooded face, his body turning to face her fully.

She swallows thickly. "Two years, about," she answers finally, hands unclasping at her back and sliding anxiously back to her sides.

"Two years." His gaze lands on her lips.

She laughs, a little too loud to be anything but a nervous distraction, and slaps him playfully on the chest as she attempts a step back. "What's going on, Keiji?"

He halts her with his hand on her wrist, fingers curling around her pulse point.

Everything but her heart stops.

His thumb is hot along her wrist, grazing her skin. "I don't know," he says, brows furrowing. He opens his mouth, halts, and then closes it again.

She sees the words falling away between them, sees the slow dimming of his eyes.

And then he is releasing her. And then he is turning from her. And then he is unreachable – and she had never realized how much that was until, suddenly, the feel of his grip on her delicate wrist is all she can think of.

"I don't know," he repeats, eyes fixed to the painting once more. He releases a long, slow breath.

But her air is already gone.

_* * *_

_Time index 746.83_

_Bypass in progress k490x50uploading files 340 through 577 (encryption key 119537284)_

_In progress…_

_In progress…_

_Drop-point secured_

_Rootkit enabled_

_Activate remote access? Y_

_Send automated command sequence? Y_

_Passkey sent688308265_

* * *

"Kasumi!"

Keiji's frantic yell of strangled panic is overtaken quickly by the turret fire to her left, blowing out the corner of wall she had flung herself behind. Her back slams into the concrete, wind knocked out of her, vision graying for the terrifying eternity of an instant.

She grips at the stolen hard-drive hanging from her utility belt and anchors herself.

One single, deep breath. Two blaringly long seconds. Three hard and desperate blinks.

_Count them out, Kasumi. Find the hole._

Keiji materializes across the hall from her, finding cover behind a similar concrete wall and when they lock eyes everything passes between them that shouldn't and couldn't but _does_.

The guards are flooding in through the east exit and her shaking fingers are already finding their way to her omni-tool, her form blanking out in a flicker of light and a crackle of electricity. Keiji's eyes widen imperceptibly, his knuckles going white as they grip the wall, and somehow, within the following twelve minutes, they make it out alive.

Seventeen bodies litter the floor behind them and later, when they are breathless and safe and in the dark, hidden shadows of their headquarters, Keiji moves to her, hands finding purchase on her face and holding her before him. They stare at each other – each too hesitant to test further, each too grateful to feel even this, and each too desperate to let go. They hold gazes for a long, heated moment. Kasumi's fingers inch up his coat and lodge at his collar. Her mouth parts in a pant of delirium – of exhilaration and near-panic.

But they both made it out alive.

And they got what they came for.

And they come away with more than they realize.

Keiji releases her and pushes away. His shoulders are a harsh curve and his back is a solid line of weary strength. "Too close," he whispers.

She would argue it wasn't close enough.

There is three feet between them and far, far more inside them.

* * *

Keiji is inexplicably distant. She watches him from beneath her hood. He keeps a constant space of three feet or more between them. He doesn't linger in a room with her for more than seven full minutes, unless they are discussing work. She has counted five times he's opened his mouth to say something and then shut it silently, abruptly.

She doesn't like it.

"Are you clear?"

Kasumi glances to Keiji alongside her at his question. They both have their terminals open before them, the dim orange light barely lighting the dark room. Her fingers still over the keys as she watches him.

He turns then. "Kasumi?"

She wonders why her chest aches when he doesn't call her 'Little Bird'.

Pulling her lip between her teeth, she nods. "Backdoor's open, ready for the drop."

His lips part in thought, eyeing her, and then he is turning back to his own terminal. He clears his throat. "Alright. I'm dropping the worm. Time code it for me."

Her gut twists sharply when she looks back to her own screen. She taps the necessary keys. "Done."

"On three?"  
Her breath hitches slightly. He is just so close.

She nods her agreement, her face setting in determination. "One." She watches him watch the screen and something sinks into place inside her.

"Two," he counts.

She leans over and kisses him.

Two seconds in, Keiji kisses back.

* * *

Kasumi finds him reclined on the sofa, a worn, hard-cover book in his hands. He glances at her entrance into the room and smiles, beckoning her over. She makes her way to him, brushes her hood aside, and stands with her hands on her hips. "What are you doing?"

He offers her an impish grin. "Reading."

She rolls her eyes at that, a reluctant smirk tugging at her lips. "Okay, smartass, let me specify. What are you _reading_?"

Keiji looks back at the book in his hands, and then up at her. He reaches for her hip and tugs lightly on it. "Come here, Little Bird."

She eyes him suspiciously for only a moment, but his slowly-spreading grin is like a secret in the dim lamplight and she has always loved secrets. She climbs atop him, settling between his legs comfortably and planting her elbows on either side of him. She plops her chin into one upturned palm and ponders him, head cocked. She can feel his sigh of contentment where their chests meet and she suddenly realizes she has never loved anything so well before.

Keiji nods to the book in his hand, turning the cover over reverently, the weathered binding cracking slightly at the motion. Kasumi catches faded _kanji_ characters across the front.

"Yosano Akiko," he says.

She raises a brow in silent question.

His gaze on the book turns wistful. "Post-classical Japanese poet. Ahead of her time, bit of a feminist." His eyes flick roguishly to the girl planted atop him. "Rather sensual stuff actually," he chuckles, tapping the book.

Kasumi answers him with a similar chuckle and swipes a slim, deliberate finger down the book's spine. "How old is it exactly?"

"A couple hundred years."

She flashes him a seductive smirk. "You sure know how to tease a girl."

His laugh is short and unrestrained in the quiet room, his head leaning back along the couch arm. Kasumi holds her lip between her teeth, her smile curling at the ends.

They are quiet then for a few moments as Kasumi languidly kicks her feet back and forth in the air.

Keiji's voice is stained in veneration when he speaks next, his head lifting back up to eye the book. " _Midaregami_ , her first and most widely-known volume of _tanka_. It's a first edition."

Kasumi's gaze flickers in recognition of the name. "'Tangled Hair'," she translates in a whisper.

He nods in answer, gaze trailing over her face before glancing to her own dark hair in silent musing.

She shifts across his chest, lifting her head up from her palm to look down at him. "I'm not familiar with _tanka_."

"It's a short poem, with a syllable structure of five-seven-five-seven-seven."

"Hmm." She taps a finger along his chest. "Like a _haiku_?"

"Kind of like the _haiku_ 's predecessor," he explains, his smile branching out in fondness. "The first unit of five-seven-five is called the _kami-no-ku_ and the last one, seven-seven, is called the _shimo-no-ku_."

Her brows shoot up in appreciative surprise. "You know an awful lot about this stuff for it being just another addition to your deliciously expensive and adorably old book collection."

"My mother used to read me traditional Japanese poetry when I was very young. It's one of the few things I remember of her." His voice lowers at the end of his words, his hands turning the book over once more beneath his delicate gaze.

Kasumi blinks at his confession, her previously swinging feet suddenly stilling. She takes this small pocket of intimacy and tucks it safely and fondly between her ribs. Lacing her fingers together over his chest, she lays her head atop them and feels her love blossom just beneath her skin. "Read to me?" she asks on a soft but excited breath.

His hand finds its way into her own dark, tangled hair, tucking the short strands behind her ear. "Sure," he whispers back, and then he reads to her until dawn has crept silently through the shutter cracks and their lids are drooping with hazy sleep and Kasumi has learned what it is to want nothing in the world but one simple, unobtrusive, earnest thing.

_* * *_

_Authorization approvedpasskey80966183 accepted_3 &74_connection secured_

_Retrieving data…_

_Retrieving data…_

_Greybox data-cache downloaded._

_Do you want to open files? Y_

Kasumi watches the apparition of her dead lover in too-stark light along the room's walls. It shifts the image of his face just enough to make her question if it's really him, to make her remember – instantly and horrifically – what his warm blood on her palms and his heavy head in her lap felt like – just to know for sure.

To _know_.

His voice filters through the darkened room and she wraps her arms around herself, hands clutching at her sides until she is trembling so hard she irrationally fears she'll shatter the deck plating beneath her boots.

Until she knows.

Keiji is dead.

 

_Memory review enabled_

_Select desired file_

The images blink across the screen, her eyes threading through the memories as each piece of her falls away with them – as silent as they came and as swift as they went.

 

_Filename_4470128_

_Do you wish to open file? Y_

Standing shoulder to shoulder as she and Keiji review a detailed building layout.

 

_Filename_6317463_

_Do you wish to open file? Y_

A fluttering bird on the wind and then her face, shuttered and tight-lipped, his hand reaching for hers.

 

_Filename_7098055_

_Do you wish to open file? Y_

Their first job's reward – a painting hung in celebration along their wall – just at his peripheral when he takes her wrist between his desperate fingers and halts a breath in his chest.

 

_Filename_ 9941826_

_Do you wish to open file? Y_

The weight of her nestled atop him as he whispers his love to her in poems of tangled hair and daring sensuality.

 

_All files selected_

_Authorization entered_56 &44909_

In the thrumming hull of the _Normandy_ , Kasumi's fingers hover over the low-lit terminal. "On three, Keiji?" she whispers brokenly to the empty room around her.

No one answers back.

"One." Her voice cracks as the first tears fall.

 

_Do you wish to delete all files? Y_

"Two."

A halting, rattling breath. Her hand clenched at her chest.

She shakes her head and feels the weight of her dying heart (dying, not dead, because it is a slow decay that takes her and her love could never stop so easily as his breath did) sinking beneath the weight of his last words.

"I love you, Kasumi," his ghost whispers at her ear.

She falls to her knees and lets it take her.

 

_Confirm deletion?..._

…

…

She never could make it to 'three'.


End file.
